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This is so true. I meet a lot of homeless people through addiction recovery programs I'm part of, and there are as many reasons to be homeless as there are homeless people. If you want to improve your understanding of homelessness without actually being homeless, try sitting down and having a conversation with a homeless person. I'm sure you can find some wherever you live. Many of them are just so unbelievably lonely that you're really doing a lot by letting the tell you about their lives.

Man thanks for saying this. Nothing grinds my gears like people who talk about homeless people without actually talking to them.

Of course, there is the shitty thing where people are so disconnected that they attempt to talk 'to' someone but end up talking 'at' them instead... but at least then there is the chance for communication and understanding.

Yeah, that's why I emphasized letting them talk about their lives. But...there will always be those out of touch "why don't you just do x and then y and then have a house??" people.

Thankyou, the judgment in a lot of these comments really bothered me.

To me, this is the pertinent question: if people are homeless "by choice" - meaning they had some other option - why is our society structured in such a way that being without shelter and security seems like a better option than the alternative? How could things be different so that no one would "choose" to be homeless?

Structures cost money and we trade our time for money (and call it work).

To some, the value of doing what you want is greater than the value of the physical structure. That could be because they consider time extremely valuable, they don't value a home as highly, or because they hate the work. It's usually some combination of the three.

A lot of voluntarily homeless just see "society" as the entire list of rules of what you're supposed to do (go to college, get a job, buy a house, settle down, have kids) and reject the whole of it. It could be that you've seen enough to think that the entire system is flawed, so you just bail on all of it. It could be that those ideals just don't jive with you personally and are completely unappealing. That's how I felt when I dropped out of college and moved to China for no good reason. (Homelessness came after that). I was on track to be an investment banker or something, but hated the idea a little more each day until I finally said, "f this, I'm out" and started vagabonding around Asia.

Maybe there is an element of mental illness, I don't know. I had lunch with a psychologist once and he tried saying, "Seriously, listen to me, you are mentally ill." I guess he thought I was crazy - maybe I am - but I never went in to see him. I had no interest in altering my mind with drugs. I like who I am, even when it is difficult to interoperate with the rest of society.

When I was homeless, security was worthless. I still think it's largely an illusion, but that's a different topic. Freedom to do what I loved was well worth not having a home for. Working happened to be the thing that I loved, and I especially loved tech. I worked 16 hour days - I just wanted to work on my thing not someone else's thing. If I had enough runway to afford a House I would have done that, but I didn't. So living in a Honda civic it was. It didn't really bother me, to be honest. A bed is a bed.

Now I am married and have a baby on the way. I still don't care about security, but they need it, so ok I'm kind of reformed in that way. Luckily we're now funded so i still do exactly what I want all day. I don't know what would happen if the company failed. It's just not an option.

I love to hear more about how you thinking security is largely an illusion.

No matter what you've got it can all disappear outside of your own control. Such is life, and while most of the time it doesn't happen it will if it needs to.

No matter how much you own and how much you've got things secured in your life, all you need is one gravel under your shoe and you can fall and hit your head so as to never go back to the life you had. Wealth, job, relationships... they can all be torn down should things go majorly awry.

Security is an illusion of control, and in life you never really have any real control.

This is kind of a side issue, but I am committed to correcting these 'black or white' ideas of security.

The idea of 'security' should be represented as a spectrum, like white to black with grey in the middle. The ideas of perfect security or total insecurity— the white and black ends of the spectrum— only exist in our minds (Not in the real world.) Thats what you're talking about.

Don't focus on the extreme ideas- instead, think about the grey area of the spectrum with 'more security and more hassle' on one end, and 'less security and fewer hassles' on the other. Then you'll have a reasonable mental foundation to build your ideas on.

Interesting but I believe security is a feeling. You either feel safe or you don't.

It's true that there are lots of things that we cannot control, regardless of money or power, but when we have more options we certanly have more control over our own lives and those around us. Money is a very effective way of increasing our options in life but there are other ways too, like having more knowledge or developing a skill, more meaningful relationships.

Maybe this will play better here if it's in the words of Steve Jobs:

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Luke 12:16-20, Seneca, or some time working in insurance might do just as well.

Conversely, that same reasoning allows you to conclude that there is no reason to follow your heart.

I work in an insurance company and I approve this message.

> Maybe there is an element of mental illness, I don't know. I had lunch with a psychologist once and he tried saying, "Seriously, listen to me, you are mentally ill." I guess he thought I was crazy - maybe I am - but I never went in to see him. I had no interest in altering my mind with drugs. I like who I am, even when it is difficult to interoperate with the rest of society.

Err. Psychologists don't use drugs. Perhaps you should reconsider this one.

I actually think I'm using the wrong word. I don't think he was a psychologist, because he mostly talked about drugs I could take.

The word you want is probably psychiatrist.

Some things, it turns out, are best addressed chemically.

That's probably right. I regrettably never paid attention to the difference

Ah--it's not so cut and dry anymore. The Psychiatry profession, along with the drug companies are trying to climb out of a deep hole of bad science. The standard chemical treatment protocol is an art. There are no hard and fast truths in Psychiatry anymore.

Efficacy of drugs used to treat seriously ill Clinically Depressed patients; slightly better than placebo, and that might be stretching the data?

Drugs used to treat anxiety; the one's that work, for awhile, are addictive.

It seems like every few months, a researcher is questioning "best addressed chemically" approach. This month is long term use of antipsychotics on Schizophrenics: maybe these drugs affect the long term quality of life?

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...

> This month is long term use of antipsychotics on Schizophrenics: maybe these drugs affect the long term quality of life?

So does untreated schizophrenia.

Of course. The question isn't "do we stop treating schizophrenia", it's "should we, and how can we, transition the patient off of drugs that are potentially harmful in the long term".

We've known for a long time that anti-psychotic medication is pretty horrible. That's why groups like Hearing Voices Network have been campaigning to educate clinicians and people who hear voices about different causes and different treatment options. There are other groups that campaign against purely medical models of treatment for other illnesses.

A well known tension in mental health treatment teams is between the psychiatrist (who stereotypically will want to medicate everyone) and the psychologists (who stereotypically will want to talk to everyone).

http://www.hearing-voices.org/

There are compulsive travelers, who can't/won't stay in one place. Our society doesn't cater well to the always-on-the-move because it's both rare (most people stay put) and difficult to cater to (wanderers rarely earn much money)

There are also those that can't/won't accept responsibilities like maintaining a house, paying bills, etc. Our society caters poorly to these people because we are not full-on socialist; adults must accept responsibilities to function in our world.

Those are two rough groups that come to mind.

In Brazil, there's something called "mutirão" which loosely translates to "a bunch of people getting together to help build something for a specific person in need". For example, someone in the neighborhood needs a second story on their home (many homes are multi-generational) and so this person or family gets the needed supplies then rallies other people in the neighborhood to help build the second story. It works because at some point, those very others will likely need collective help with something of their own. In the case of a social project, the neighbors might informally crowdfund it, then build whatever it is together. Regardless, the one in need usually offers a BBQ and drinks in exchange for the work.

I'm happy that the homeless in San Francisco have iPhones and MacBooks, but surely you must realise this sounds ridiculous to people outside of the Silicon Valley, right?

I invite you to here to Eastern Europe, to see homeless people who are alcoholics and drug addicts, usually without any mental function except for thinking about how to get high and drunk again. They shit and piss over themselves, mumble, and harass people. They refuse to go to a shelter because then they'd have to stop drinking.

So yeah, I will say all homeless people are drunks and drug addicts who choose not to fix their life, and telling me that I'm wrong while living in Silicon Valley drinking your starbucks latte just makes you seem stupid.

Of course. The homeless in Palo Alto aren't anything like the homeless you're thinking of - the point was that there are many, many varieties of homeless people.

And I've seen it. I lived in eastern Ukraine (Gorlovka, Kharkov, Donetsk, Makyevka) from 2008 to 2010. I was a Mormon missionary, meaning I literally walked around all day talking with anyone who would talk with me. And yes, you're absolutely right, there are an absurd amount of people who live only to drink, especially in eastern Ukrainian mining towns after the economic collapse when all of the mines are closed. They would follow us around and harass us, try to pick a fight (didn't work too well when they were drunk) beat up the other bums (бомж), steal their money, and drink. Mostly just drink until they pass out in the park. I gave a couple grievni to a homeless man once who was asking for bread, and watched him literally take my money, walk to the nearest store and buy a bottle of vodka. He didn't even care that I watched him do it. It was my last time giving money to beggars. When we'd serve the homeless food from the church it was pretty much гречка (buckwheat) loaded up with salt, because we knew they were all either drunk or on a hangover.

But I also met Pyotr, a man who was seemed to be in his fifties. He was obviously incredibly intelligent, and had times when he seemed perfectly normal, and he despised alcohol (for ruining his family, he said). If he were diagnosed he probably would have been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; I'm no psychiatrist, but he would take bundles of sticks and obsessively clean out the walkways and stairways until they were spotless. If he saw somebody drop a bottle in the park he would literally sprint to pick it up and throw it away. He dressed in rubber boots usually worn by older women, and just went around cleaning stuff all day muttering to himself. All day, every day. I liked talking to Pyotr. He even recognized that he had gone a little bit crazy, and said he did so when he was studying higher math at a local university. He was working at a level of math that was very theoretical, and he just snapped, I guess.

When I first met him, I thought he was drunk or high or something. He had a little bit of a twitch and talked so quickly that his sentences slurred together (not like a drunk slur, just a way that was very difficult to understand as someone who had learned Russian as a second language). But as I talked with him, it became clear that there was just something mentally off.

So by and large, I'd say you're correct; it's pretty hard to be truly homeless in eastern Europe. Most are intolerable drunks. But some aren't.

The point I was trying to make is that there are many, many types of homeless people. Of course, the vast majority of homeless aren't like the voluntarily homeless in Palo Alto who could easily get a job if they cared to. Being homeless in a country that provides a pension and housing for all is especially interesting, but not all of them are drunk assholes either.

It doesn't sound ridiculous to me.

Across the UK an iPhone is a trivially* cheap item.

1 months' rent in London would buy you a decent spec MacBook. 3-4 months' rent in a cheaper city would do the same.

Many people seem to have the viewpoint that it's some sort of irrational decision to not prioritise housing above everything else.

40 hour weeks making others obese so that I can barely make the rent whilst my boss buys his next car?

Trivial choice from where I'm standing. I do feel for those who have dependents, though.

* It is fairly common here for people to 'call out' welfare recipients as owning big TV's, iPhones, etcetera; as evidence as profligate spending. From my point of view, luxury electronics are for the poor and rich, and excluded from the middle classes. Why? Because the poor can never expect to build capital regardless, and the rich have capital already. Only the middle classes actually need to think about expenditure, because they may eventually be able to own property.

Serious question: In your experience, what services did you and the other "affluent" homeless take advantage of during your time without a home?

Hmm, not much, really. Mostly just knowledge and connections. Some would move back home to friends/family, which not all have the opportunity to do. That's a big deal mentally. Credit is a big one; they can grab a credit card and float, some homeless people can't.

Thanks for the reply. I ask mainly because if those that choose to live this lifestyle are not a burden on the already strained resources available to those in need, then what right does anyone have to judge them?